The Romantic on The Romance Reviews

Friday, November 16, 2012

What Came First...?

In her book, Mythology, Edith Hamilton wrote: “The
Greeks did not believe that the gods created the universe. It was the other way
about: the universe created the gods.”

Could this conceivably be the creative conundrum of the
storyteller’s existence? Does the writer create the story or does the story
create the writer?

The analogousness of a writer’s creative process with Creation
myths that span millennia—among various religions—can only hint at the
frustration and wonder that a writer endures.

Long before the characters (gods) emerge from the void of
formless Chaos and unending darkness, lies a formless plethora of potential
plots, but no definitive story.

Our consciousness attempts to formulate a storyline, but
almost always—like recent attempts by physicists to develop a Theory of
Everything—the “equation” collapses, and the would-be story crumbles.

There are moments when we writers merely sit with a blank
stare for hours on end and wait for that whisper from our soul that lures us
along a path that we have yet to travel. The beauty of such a moment is when we
fall down a rabbit-hole and find ourselves in a wonderland of our own creation.
The tragedy is when that whisper is lost like a scent in a breeze and we ache
for the echo of imaginative introspection.

Occasionally a spark in our sleep ignites the fires of our
artistic hearth, and we write from our dreams, the cinema of the mind—as Robert
Olsen Butler once called it.

Then there are those moments when we act out of desperation and
try to force it.

The result: a work more cerebral than quixotic.

Even though a first draft is expected to be crude and in
need of extensive revisions, it just feels as though that first draft begins
below sea level when we force the writing. Making the climb along the steep
slope to respectable writing, that much more arduous.

So where does one begin? How does one begin? Does the writer
even have any control over the creation process or is the act of creation the
will of the gods?

We read, we write, we imagine, we think, we walk, we take a
nap, we prepare another cup of coffee and we wait.

One minute doubles, and then it doubles again, and then
sixty seconds later we look at the clock and notice five minutes have passed.

(Crickets chirp)

Five minutes are an eternity when we have other obligations
to which we must direct our attention. But we must allow ourselves to linger in
that ocean of absent imagination, and watch as the “aha” moment materializes
out of nothingness like a Big Bang that explodes in a primordial ocean of Chaos.

It is quite conceivable that we can create the perfect
conditions by continuously reading, writing, and consuming coffee with our
favorite flavored creamers. Thus, having as much to do with the creation
process as we do with the creative process of writing a novel.

To the world of our imagination, we are the gods, the omnipresent
entities in the universe of our stories. We grant our characters a certain
amount of free will, and although that can work against us, there’s still
nothing in the world that we’d rather do!

We decide the destiny of our characters, and we write the
stories that emerge from our creative core. Whether we create the story and it
becomes a completed novel, or the stories become published and we earn the
title of published author; it may be a query without end akin to the conundrum
of the chicken and the egg.

In the end it becomes a new beginning, and we ask ourselves
if we began at the end. The endless cycle of creation and completion is what we
live for, because it’s the only way that a writer truly feels alive. Most may
never truly understand our eccentricities, save for the gods of legend who
often interfered on mortal affairs, and though we didn’t create the universe in
which we live, we long to contribute to our world a written reminder that we
once lived and died as writers.

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Dear Love: Diary of a Man's Desire

About Me

Felix Alexander is a Mexican-born, American-raised novelist, and poet of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent.
Acclaimed by readers for his poetic prose, his indie releases include: Dear Love: Diary of a Man’s Desire, a collection of love letters, and poems; and The Romantic, a novel.
The release, and increasing popularity of his debut novel has earned Felix a growing audience. With the assistance of the Independent Author Network, and GoodReads, his online presence has gradually expanded across social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Authors Database, Google + andTsu.
Being third-generation military, after a grandfather and uncle who served in the Korean War and Vietnam War, respectively, Alexander is proud of his service in the U.S. Army, and grateful for his experience. After his honorable discharge, he embarked on the long and lonely journey of a writer.
Felix writes cozy and gothic mysteries, historical fantasy, MG fantasy, literary and contemporary romance.